“I’m outraged!”

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Some decades ago “outrage” was powerful. The political slogan of 1975 was, “Maintain your rage”, and later it was used by Animal Rights activists to show how deeply we felt about cruelty to animals. In those days, we got emotional. We dared to speak our minds, and I used to think brave speech could change things - the more outrage the better. And along with our outrage came personal change. But with all our mind expansion we could never really see how change would happen in the wider community. It was obvious there was a lot of ‘entrenched attitude’ but it wasn’t being shifted by our outrage.  

            In a way, nothing has moved on in terms of animals getting more rights. Sure, their welfare has been marginally improved in specific ways, sow stalls and cages are being looked at. But essentially, no great change of attitude has yet happened, not on any sort of scale anyway. At present, the game being played out amongst consumers and animal rights groups is a mind game. We enjoy seeing the issues fought over, whichever side we happen to be on. But we all skirt around the edges, we talk about food and diets and recipes and produce magazines which address health issues and the cruelty of factory farming, but the fuller picture is avoided for fear it will turn too many people off. The more profound ‘message’ of Animal Rights hasn’t sunk in yet. It hasn’t penetrated far enough, to bring about the type of attitude-change needed; it would need to be deep enough to touch allied issues, to set them off. I’m thinking of a general move towards egalitarian thinking and non-violence.

            Initially though, outrage being a reaction to some diabolical things happening down on the farm, Animal Rights begins with changing general attitude towards animals, and from there follows a more widespread revolution of attitude.